


Ghosts

by agentcxrter



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: I'm so sorry, M/M, Post Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1412005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentcxrter/pseuds/agentcxrter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The ones you love become ghosts inside you, and this way, you keep them alive."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I actually don't know how this happened.
> 
> I sincerely apologize in advance.

Leonard sometimes has nightmares.  
He'll bolt awake at absurd hours of the morning fresh from the clutches of yet another episode of the hell that now taunts the inside of his head. It's been three months since the adversary Khan had made his mark known on the Enterprise. Three months since he'd last heard Jim laugh. Three months since he'd last seen his smile which was similar to the sun, that he didn't see much in space. 

Three months since Jim had died. 

 

He's tried to come out and talk with the crew, because he knows that they're feeling the same pain he is - they're all mourning the same man. But for some reason, he can't. He can't will himself out of his bed, hell, he can't even look in the direction of the left side of the room - that was always Jim's side. His clothes are sill lying haphazardly on the floor; Leonard can't bring himself to pick them up. (It doesn't help that they smell like him, too.) He had always joked that Jim was something like a walking storm, because he left messes wherever he went. Now he lies bitterly on the bathroom floor, with nothing but an empty bottle of whiskey keeping him company, thinking that he'd never been so right about someone or something in his entire life. Not only did James Tiberius Kirk leave physical messes on the bedroom floor, but he made messes in the form of whispered words and light touches in the late hours of the night. Leonard's heart was a state of emergency, a disaster rated on only the highest levels. He might as well been buried in the casket along with Jim, because the life that had been in him was directly linked to the light in Jim's unnaturally blue eyes. 

Leonard remembers from an old class he took at the Academy, (coincidentally, one that Jim had dragged him to) that the professor was lecturing about Shakespeare, and one of the sonnets he had written - sixty-four, was the number. There was always one part that had stuck out to him - "This thought is as a death which cannot choose / But weep to have that which it fears to lose." To him, time, love, and death were the most dangerous of triumvirates. Time was destruction, ruthless, and unforgiving; love took the sting of time away , but only slightly, for it could give you the lightest heart and the ability to laugh with the most kindred of spirits, or it could do the opposite. As for death, well, death was inevitable. It worked side by side with time, and it didn't care for love, but in the end, if you think about it, death is only doing it's job. They are all just fulfilling their own roles in the universe.

Leonard believes his role in the universe was to be with Jim. 

He knows it sounds vaguely pathetic, like he's a damn teenage girl whining about her feelings in those dumb holovids Jocelyn used to make him watch back when they were dating. He sometimes says it aloud to himself in his quarters, hoping that the sentence will maybe bounce off the walls and cure the room of this state of emptiness it's currently in. Sometimes he cries, in the day, or in the dark hours of the night. He tries not to remember then the way Jim used to hold him tight against his chest, and rub small, soothing circles near the small of his back. No one had known Leonard as well as Jim does - no, did. The way Jim did. 

That will take some getting used to.

He hears from the ship wide gossip mill that, naturally, Spock has taken over as acting captain. Surprisingly enough, Sulu is now first officer - The Vulcan and the helmsman somehow formed a bond through their shared knowledge and love of botany, which was a shock to basically everyone aboard. He knows he should care, but honestly, he doesn't. He knows he should probably do a lot of things. He should get off his ass and go down to Medbay; he knows he still needs to record his account of the fatal mission in his Medical Log. He should at least step out of his quarters, so people will at least know he's alive. He should answer sometimes when his communicator rings, and reall, he would, if he didn't think it was Jim every time. He gets filled with an irrational hope that swells in his chest, and then he remembers that the person comming him isn't Jim, because how could it be? Jim is cold and still; and Leonard is left to pick up the pieces. But the most important thing he neds to do, however, is to erase every bit of Jim that still lingers in his quarters. He knows he should, that it's for the best, but he just can't bring himself to do so. Leo feels like if he throws that shirt away, or the leather jacket that he insisted on wearing when they were on shore leave together, that he's throwing a part of Jim away as well. Leo isn't ready to let Jim Kirk go, Not one bit.

 

Sometime, in the midst of his grief filled haze, Christine comes to visit. She had figured out the override code to his room long ago, and to be quite honest, he was fond of the young nurse. She was a refreshing splash of color compared to the otherwise drab complexion of the Medbay, and Leo enjoyed having her around. She steps in and sees the mess, but then notices that the physical mess is nothing compared to the mental state her friend is in. Oddly enough, Christine has always been woman of few words. She sits down on the edge of the bed, next to Leo in silence, before only saying one thing.

 

"I know how it seems like..you never will get over this. I know how painful it is to lose someone so close to you. so special. And what I've learned about it, is that, while you do eventually move on, you never really do stop missing them. The pain subsides, but it never goes away. But..just because they're not living, doesn't mean they're gone. Because when you lose someone so close like that, they never really do go away. The things they used to say, you find yourself saying as well, and they become something like a good smell you can't wash off, or a good memory of something that makes you smile. I mean, it's just," She runs a hand through her hair. "I think that, when we continue our lives, after a passing so tragic and sudden, like Captain Kirk's...it's up to us to make sure that they live inside us...so through ourselves...we can keep them alive." 

She stands up and kisses Leonard on the cheek, then leaves, leaving with Leonard with nothing but her words ringing throughout his head.

"It's up to us to make sure that they live inside us, so through ourselves, we can keep them alive." 

 

The next day, he gets up, showers, and heads out the door. It's the day that they've finally arrived back on Earth, for mandatory shore leave for 4 months, for all the crew, for the Enterprise to be repaired, and also for the crew to have time to deal wit the sudden loss that had been thrust upon them. Once Leonard steps off .the ship, he heads, straight for Pike's office with a plan.

 

Two months later, the James T. Kirk Foundation for Wayward Adolescents is officially open, and Leonard swears he can feel Jim smiling down on him.


End file.
